Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A Roman Catholic diocese in Nova Scotia will try to
close a dark chapter in its history this week as it wraps up a sex abuse
settlement with 125 people, but the lawyer representing them says they
continue to heal their emotional wounds.The final instalment of a $16-million
compensation settlement for confirmed and alleged victims of sexual
abuse is due Thursday from the Diocese of Antigonish, bringing a close
to a long legal process spearheaded by Ronald Martin.Martin launched a class-action lawsuit
against the diocese after his brother wrote a suicide note in 2002
alleging Hugh Vincent MacDonald, a priest, sexually abused him.

MacDonald was charged with sex-related offences in 2003 but died a year
later before the court process concluded.Martin's concerns prompted dozens of people
to come forward with similar allegations dating back more than 60 years
against several priests who worked for the diocese.

"This has been a very long and difficult
process and Ron Martin took this on his shoulders," said Halifax lawyer
John McKiggan, who represented the plaintiffs."I know personally it's been a source of a
great deal of stress for Ron because he felt not only the obligation to
fulfil a promise to his brother, but also the obligation he undertook on
behalf of all the class members."

Martin did not return messages seeking comment.McKiggan said he believes the final payment
will give plaintiffs a sense of relief after struggling with the
uncertainty of whether the diocese, which was forced to put some of its
assets up for sale, could come up with the full settlement."I know that the survivors that I've talked
to recently are certainly looking forward to being able to close the
book on this and move forward," said McKiggan.He said the settlement was not about money — it was about holding the Roman Catholic Church accountable for past misdeeds."This was never about money to begin with.
For Ron Martin, this was about fulfilling a promise ... and holding
someone accountable for what happened to him and all the other
survivors," said McKiggan."That has been achieved through the class-action, but trying to heal ... that's a process that's ongoing."Rev. Donald MacGillivray, a spokesman for
the diocese, said it is prepared to make the last payment. But the
settlement has become a significant financial burden for the diocese,
which has lost many members in recent years, he added.

"People have found this really difficult. The whole thing has been terribly distasteful," he said."The fact that the diocese had to do this
in the first place, that these wrongdoings occurred in the first place,
has really been difficult for people."The diocese put about 150 properties up for sale. More than 100 parishes were drained of their savings, MacGillivray said.Also included in the sale of assets was the
Casket, a local weekly newspaper owned by the diocese. It was bought by
the owner of the Halifax Chronicle Herald.MacGillivray said at the St. Anthony Daniel
Parish in Sydney, N.S., where he serves as a pastor, about $8,500 in
cash was funnelled into the settlement — the church's entire savings."It's really difficult for parishioners who
had nothing to do with this, have no responsibility, but yet, they're
requiring to be involved in sacrificing so this payment can be made," he
said.But MacGillivray said the diocese can soon turn its attention to rebuilding its finances."The savings that parishes had to give up,
we'll have to work at trying to collect the funds we need to do the work
that we need to do," he said.Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of the
diocese, helped broker the settlement in August 2009. That came weeks
before he was charged with importing child pornography into Canada. He
was later convicted, sentenced to time served, and defrocked by the Holy
See in Rome.

The settlement will provide $13 million to
alleged and confirmed victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests
who worked for the diocese between 1950 and September 2009. The rest of
it will cover legal and administrative fees.McKiggan said some of the plaintiffs have
been awarded funding for counselling that will continue on an ongoing
basis, and there is also a reconciliation process that they can
participate in along with the diocese.

"The purpose is to try to mend fences and heal the wounds," he said.MacGillivray said he is optimistic the diocese and the plaintiffs will be able to move on."Healing always takes time," said MacGillivray."But I'm a person of hope, and that's what my faith calls me to be."

Poland's supreme court has issued a landmark judgment against a heavy metal
musician who tore up a Bible at a gig in 2007.

Although the judges
conceded that Adam Darski, AKA Nergal, did not intend to offend his
audience, they ruled that he could still have "offended religious
feelings", violating Polish law.

If found guilty, the singer could face
up to two years in prison.

Darski had released eight albums
with his band, Behemoth, by the time of their notorious performance in
Gdynia on 13 September 2007. Appearing in full costume and makeup, Darski tore up a Bible and described the Catholic church as "the most murderous cult on the planet".

"We'd
been doing that for two years on tour before it happened in Poland,"
Behemoth bassist Tomasz Wróblewski told Decibel magazine (via Blabbermouth). "We [were] not offending any particular person. We [were] just offending the religion that we've been raised in."

Despite this intention, Darski was pursued by Polish courts for having offended Catholic fans. After being cleared by judges in 2010 and 2011,
the singer/guitarist is again on trial. Officials in Gdansk asked the
supreme court how Darski could be "offending religious feelings" if most
of Behemoth's fans expected theatrical sacrilege?

"The
crime of offending religious sensibilities is committed not only by he
who intends to carry it out, but also by he who is aware that his
actions may lead to offence being taken," the court said. Prosecutors
have been permitted to pursue with the criminal trial.

"One should respect the court's verdict," Darski told journalists.

But the Catholic church is also "immature", he said, "trying to gag people … [and] freedom of speech". Speaking to Reuters,
Darski's lawyer said they would continue to oppose the charges: "We are
still arguing that we were dealing with art, which allows more critical
and radical statements," Jacek Potulski explained.

Darski
is currently a judge on the TV singing competition The Voice of Poland.
Behemoth's most recent LP, Evangelion, was released in 2009. It reached
No 2 in Poland.

It's rare to be
invited to an event five years off and even rarer to bicker about its
details, but Germany's Catholic Church finds itself in that delicate
situation thanks to an overture from its Protestant neighbors.

German Protestants are planning
jubilee celebrations in 2017 to mark the 500th anniversary of Martin
Luther's launching of the Reformation, a major event in the history of
Christianity, of Europe and of the German nation, language and culture.
The
Protestants have invited the Catholics to join in, a gesture in harmony
with the good relations the two halves of German Christianity enjoy and
the closeness many believers feel across the denominational divide.
But
even after five centuries, being asked to commemorate a divorce that
split western Christianity and led to many bloody religious wars is
still hard for some Catholics to swallow.
"It's
not impossible in principle, but it depends on the character of the
events planned," Bishop Gerhard Feige, the top Catholic official dealing
with Protestants, said in a statement for the Protestant Reformation
Day holiday on Wednesday.
"Catholic
Christians consider the division of the western Church as a tragedy and
- at least until now - do not think they can celebrate this merrily,"
he wrote in the text outlining Catholic doubts about the event.LUTHER, A GERMAN GIANT
The
Reformation began in 1517 when German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95
Theses to a church door to denounce corruption in the Catholic Church,
especially the sale of indulgences to help build the lavish new Saint
Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Excommunicated
by Rome, he won support from German princes who soon battled others who
remained Catholic. The ensuing wars of religion killed about a third of
Germany's population over the next century and spread to neighboring
countries as well.
After Luther's
break with Rome, dissent spread and thousands of new denominations
eventually emerged, the largest being the Presbyterians, Anglicans,
Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans.
Luther is also a major cultural figure in Germany
thanks to his pioneering translation of the Bible, which shaped the
German language as much as Shakespeare's plays influenced English.

Commemorative
church services, concerts and conferences leading up to 2017 are
already underway around Germany. There are also cultural events, such as
a show of 800 plastic statues of Luther that filled the main square in
Wittenberg in 2010.
This mix of religious, cultural and commercial activities led Feige to ask what the Catholics were being invited to join.
"Many
initiatives and plans may well be justified, but it's not always easy
to find out what 2017 will be all about," he wrote in what he called his
"Ten Catholic Theses".
"It would be good if the Protestants would work out some points more clearly," he said.
Catholic-Protestant
cooperation is a public issue in Germany, where the churches are equal
in size and active in public life. Both run many schools and social
services.
Intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants is common.
Prominent politicians from right and left recently issued a manifesto urging more progress towards overcoming their split.TOWARDS A COMMON UNDERSTANDING?
While many Germans stress the similarities between the two, the churches remain quite distinct.

Catholicism
is centralized under the Vatican in Rome and its teachings tend to be
more conservative, while the Protestants are split into many local
churches that range from conservative to liberal but value their freedom
to govern themselves.
Feige said
Catholics and Protestants had come closer to each other since the 16th
century, especially since the reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican
Council opened the Catholic Church to more contact with other faiths.
But
there were still major differences between them on issues such as the
office of the pope, the meaning of the eucharist and the role of the
priest that could not be ignored.

Feige
also found some Protestant depictions of the Reformation too positive,
playing down the suffering and divisions it caused over the following
centuries.
"It would be very
helpful if both denominations could come to a common understanding of
what happened," he said, suggesting they could find some way to "cleanse
their memories".
Margot Kaessmann,
a former Lutheran bishop who heads the preparations for the 2017
events, has said she wants Catholics to join in but turned down a
Vatican suggestion both sides work out a common admission of guilt for
the separation.
The Evangelical
Church in Germany (EKD), the main Protestant federation, plans to
discuss the preparations for 2017 at its annual synod meeting next week.

IN
the hallowed atmosphere of Limerick city's oldest building, St Mary's
Cathedral, built in 1168, another piece of ecclesiastical history was
made when the first female Dean of Limerick and Ardfert, Sandra Pragnell
was installed.

Describing
the ceremony in the medieval cathedral as "a special occasion,"the
newly ordained Dean who is from the UK said it was "special for both the
Church of Ireland and the wider community of Limerick and Kerry.

A
native of Hampshire, the newly ordained Dean worked in the public
sector in London before entering the ministry in Dublin, where she
studied at Trinity College and All Hallows.

She said her ministry was about people.

"People
count, people need to know that they belong, whether they come to
church, are occasional attenders, whether they are lapsed, whatever -
they still belong to the family of God."

She
said she looked forward to building up a working relationship with the
Catholic Church in Limerick under Diocesan Administrator Fr Tony
Mullins.

"That
has happened in every parish I have been in and I think it is so
important the more we can do together, the more we are doing what Christ
wants us to do."

The
installation ceremony was conducted by the Bishop of Limerick, Rev
Trevor Williams and the congregation included the Catholic administrator
of the Diocese of Limerick, Fr Tony Mullins; the lay leader of the
Methodist Church, Gillian Kingston; retired Church of Ireland Archbishop
of Armagh, Rev Alan Harper and the retired Archbishop of Dublin, Rev
Walton Empey, who ordained Dean Pragnell to the priesthood in Dublin.

Mayor Gerry McLoughlin led a representation of leading civic figures at the installation.

The Orange Order has announced plans to build two museums in Northern Ireland at a cost of £3.6 million (€4.5m).

The aim of the project is to promote better understanding and increased tolerance of its organisation.

Funding for the museums is coming from the EU's Peace III Programme and it will be spent on the projects in Belfast and Armagh.

The
initiative is also supported by the Government, which is providing
€740,000 from the Department of the Environment under the Peace III
Programme, and the Stormont Assembly.Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said the new project could
create better levels of mutual understanding on both sides of the
border.The Orange Order has been criticised recently over the behaviour of a
loyalist band outside a Catholic church in Belfast during a parade,
when one bandsman was photographed urinating beside the church.Director of Services with the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland Dr David
Hume said he understood that it was not a clear cut story and that the
incident is being investigated.Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Dr Hume said there continues to be hurt and distrust in Northern Ireland.He said there may still be what he called "glitches" or instances of
bad behaviour on either side in the short term, but that the Orange
Order's efforts are to look at creating greater understanding in the
longer term."We are a community that has just come out of 40 years of violence
and terrorism. There is mistrust, there is hurt, there are difficulties
in the relationships between communities," Dr Hume said."These things will, in the short term, continue to happen, and to be honest about it, that's the way its going to be".

FILMING IS coming to an end on a new Irish horror film The Exorcism
Diaries, at Ballintubbert House near Stradbally Co Laois.

It was home to
the late Anglo-Irish poet and British poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis,
father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary film-maker Tasmin
Day-Lewis.

Film director Eric Courtney said yesterday the
90-minute feature was about demonic possession involving a young girl,
but it was not of the “head spinning” variety.

It was “very, very real
in the Ken Loach style”, he said. It centres on two students who come
across an exorcism scene. The story is told from their point of view.

The film script by Martin Robinson is based on two books, The Dark
Sacrament by David Kiely and Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin, a
deceased former Jesuit priest from Ballylongford in Kerry. The latter
book is based on five exorcisms he witnessed.

As part of his
research for the film Mr Courtney met two Catholic priests who are
exorcists here in Ireland, Fr Pat Collins and Canon William Landrum,
with whom he discussed their experience of exorcisms.

In an
appearance on RTÉ One television’s Late Late Show in January 2006, both
priests told Pat Kenny there had been an increase in paranormal activity
in Ireland and that they were finding it difficult to meet the demand
for exorcisms.

They claimed there was a popular perception these days
that there was no such thing as ghosts, spirits or demons, and as a
result people experiencing such phenomena were not taken seriously.

They
also said they would like the church to take the matter more seriously
and train new exorcists.

Filming on The Exorcism Diaries has been
wrapping up for the past two weeks at Ballintubbert House.

Editing
should be completed by January, allowing the film to be ready for the US
and European festival circuit by the middle of next year.

In 2008
Courtney directed Seer, the story of seven strangers who wake up in a
remote house in Wexford with no memory and a tag on their wrists to tell
them their names.

IRELAND’S CATHOLIC bishops have declined to meet the Association of
Catholic Priests’ leadership team, saying any such engagement “would
best take place at local level by using established structures such as
the Council of Priests”.

The ACP team said yesterday it was “both disappointed and saddened by this response”.

It
found it “hard to understand why, in this time of great difficulty for
the Irish church, neither the bishops as a body, or any individual
bishop, is willing to meet with an association that has a membership of
over 1,000 priests”.

It noted the Catholic primate “Cardinal Seán
Brady, in a letter to the ACP on May 1st of this year, wrote: ‘The ACP
has already met representatives of the bishops and also attended a
meeting of a Commission of the Episcopal Conference and we expect that
there will be ongoing meetings of this nature’.” No such ‘ongoing’
meetings have taken place.”

Yesterday the ACP leadership team released details of its two meetings with bishops.

One,
in March 2011, related to the new missal and no changes sought by the
ACP were agreed.

A second “private meeting, very pleasant and affable”
with two bishops took place last spring. Following it the ACP felt “more
meetings like this would not serve any useful purpose”.

Last
June, the ACP wrote to the cardinal requesting a meeting with the
episcopal conference.

Among the things they wished to discuss was “what
will we do now to save the Irish Catholic Church. . .from effective
collapse?”

The ACP agm takes place at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on November 9th and 10th.

The act of faith is certainly an
individual act, which takes place in our innermost being, but "faith is
truly personal only if it is communitary, if it moves within the 'we' of
the Church," which allows us to become "like a window that receives the
light of the living God and communicate it to the world," because
"faith is strengthened by being gifted to others."

Once again, Benedict
XVI has dedicated his general audience catechesis to "questions about
the faith" in this Year of Faith.And if last week the question concerned faith as a gift from God,
"for it is God who takes the initiative, so faith is a response with
which we welcome Him as the truth and stable foundation of our life,"
the Pope today asked the 10 thousand people in St Peter's Square despite
the rainy day - which, he joked, "could be worse" - "if faith is of a
purely personal, individual character? Does it only affect me
personally? Do I live my faith alone?".

The answer is found in Baptism, when the priest asks the person to be
baptized if he believes in God the Father, Jesus His only Son and the
Holy Spirit. The "I do" with which we answer "is not the result of my
solitary reflection, it is not the product of my own thoughts, but it is
the result of a relationship, a dialogue in which there is a listening,
and receiving and response; it is communicating with Jesus that takes
me out of the "I" that is enclosed in on myself to open up to the love
of God the Father. It is like a rebirth in which I find myself united
not only Jesus, but also all those who have walked and walk on the same
path; and this new birth, which begins with Baptism, continues
throughout the course of my existence. I can not build my personal faith
in a private dialogue with Jesus, because faith is given to me by God
through a community of believers, the Church, and I a become part of the
multitude of believers in a community that is not only sociological,
but rooted in the eternal love of God. "

So when we recite the Creed during the Mass "we express ourselves in
the first person, but as a community we confess the one faith of the
Church. That" I " individually pronounced is united to that of an
immense choir in time and space, in which everyone contributes, so to
speak, for a harmonious polyphony of faith. "

Besides, since
Pentecost, "when the journey of the Church began," it has been a
"community" that brings the announcement of the death and resurrection
of Jesus "to the ends of the world" "It is the People of God based on
new covenant thanks to the blood of Christ, whose members do not belong
to a particular social or ethnic group, but are men and women from every
nation and culture. It is a ' Catholic' people, that is, one which
speaks new languages, universally open to welcome all, beyond all
boundaries, breaking down all barriers".

And there is "an unbroken chain of life of the Church, of the
proclamation of the Word of God, of the celebration of the sacraments -
he underscored - that comes to us and which we call Tradition. It
guarantees that what we believe is the original message of Christ,
preached by the apostles. "

"The widespread contemporary tendency to relegate faith to the
private sphere - concluded the Pope - contradicts its very nature. We
need the Church to confirm our faith and to experience together the
gifts of God: His Word , the Sacraments, the sustenance of grace and
witness of love. So our "I" into the "we" of the Church will be able to
perceive that it is, at the same time, recipient and protagonist of an
event that surpasses it: the experience of communion with God who
establishes communion between people. In a world where individualism
seems to regulate the relationships between people, rendering them
increasingly fragile, faith calls us to be people of God, to be the
Church, and bearers of the love and communion of God for all mankind. "

The town of Ballina has been rocked by the sudden death
of a local priest in what is believed to be the first case in recent
years of a Catholic cleric in Ireland taking his own life.

Residents
in the Co Mayo town yesterday expressed shock at news of the death of
Fr Muredach Tuffy, a popular curate and director of the Newman
Institute — an educational centre known as Ballina’s "Catholic
university".

The body of the 39-year-old was discovered early yesterday in his apartment, attached to the institute at Cathedral Close.

Local sources said no foul play was involved.

Fellow priests in Ballina and the Diocese of Killala were too upset to
comment when contacted yesterday.

Fr
Gerard O’Hora, the parish priest of Ballina and spokesman for the Bishop
of Killala, Dr John Fleming, was also unavailable.

A native
of Castleconnor, Co Sligo, where he was ordained in 1999, Fr Tuffy had
worked as director of the Newman Institute since 2003 and has been
instrumental in its development and growth into a centre for adult
religious education.

He was also the diocesan director of
pastoral renewal and diocesan vocations director, as well as lecturing
in applied theology at the Newman Institute. He also acted as Bishop
Fleming’s spokesman.

Fr Tuffy officiated at the wedding of a friend in his home town of Castleconnor last Saturday.

Local Fianna Fáil TD Dara Calleary, who attended school with Fr Tuffy
at St Muredach’s College in Ballina, said Ballina was "shocked beyond
belief".

Enniskillen-based priest and well-known
broadcaster Fr Brian D’Arcy spoke earlier this week about the pressures
of being a priest in Ireland amid the fallout of various clerical
sexual abuse scandals, as well as grappling with controversial Church
teaching on issues such as clerical celibacy, contraception, and
homosexuality.

CARDINAL Sean Brady has refused to meet a group of reforming priests
in the latest snub from the church hierarchy to its own members.

The
Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which has more than 1,000
members, has published correspondence it sent to the cardinal seeking a
meeting with bishops to discuss the future of the church.In
response, the Bishops' Conference executive secretary Fr G Dullea said
the hierarchy had decided that engagement with the ACP should happen at
local level.

The council is organised on diocesan level and
involves priests meeting several times a year to discuss issues and then
report to their local bishop. It does not allow for the ACP as a group
to meet face-to-face with bishops.

It is the latest snub to the
ACP after bishops in the west of Ireland refused to attend an assembly
of priests and lay people in Galway last month and signals that
relations between the hierarchy and the ACP are at a new low.

Fr
Tony Flannery, a spokesman for the ACP, said they were disappointed and
saddened with the response to their letter. He added that it was a
"fairly definitive statement" on the hierarchy's feelings about the
group.

Fr Flannery is a Redemptorist priest and was a long-time
columnist with the order's 'Reality' magazine until earlier this year
when he was silenced by the Vatican because of his liberal views.

He
said: "Essentially what we have been told is for us to enter into
discussion with ourselves. There is no episcopal involvement with them
(the Council of Priests) at all. It's a total opting out of any discussion or dialogue with us which is very sad. There is nothing good about this and we don't take any pleasure in this."

Fr Flannery said that there had only been minimal engagement by the bishops with the ACP.

Survive

A
delegation met with an episcopal commission to discuss the introduction
of the New Missal last year, while earlier this year there was a
private meeting between three members of the ACP leadership and two
representatives of the bishops' conference.

In June, the ACP wrote to Cardinal Brady to request a meeting with the Episcopal Conference.

"We stress that the Association of Catholic Priests is not 'against' the church. We are part of it, we care about it and we want it to survive," they wrote.

A spokesman for the Bishops' Conference said yesterday there were "ongoing meetings" between bishops and priests at local level.

Paolo Gabriele, Pope
Benedict's former butler, has begun an 18-month prison sentence inside the Vatican walls, after being found guilty by a Vatican City
court of stealing sensitive documents from the Pope's desk.

What will
life be like for the only prisoner inside the world's smallest sovereign
state?

The Pope's former butler is being treated "leniently and
justly" according to Vatican authorities, and may even benefit from a
papal pardon before the end of his prison term, if he shows repentance
and apologises to Pope Benedict and all the other people who work for
the Holy See for the scandal he caused.

But for the moment he has exchanged his modest "grace and
favour" three-bedroom apartment just inside the walls of the Vatican for
a sparsely furnished detention room inside the headquarters of the
Pope's private police force, the Vatican Gendarmerie.Not only has he been sacked, but he now risks losing his home
as well, situated almost next door to his former workplace, the Papal
apartments on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace.

The Answer

Gabriele will be kept in a large detention cell

He will be allowed regular visits by his family and will receive spiritual counselling from a priest

He will also be allowed to attend Sunday mass under police escort

The Vatican Gendarmes insist the conditions he'll be kept in will respect the Geneva convention

Vatican City has a railway
station - with only one train a week bringing in bonded duty-free goods,
a Post Office, a radio station, a pharmacy, a supermarket, a fire
brigade, a five-star hotel, and one of the world's most visited museums,
but it has no prison - and no dungeons.

Its only crime problem is normally to catch and prosecute the
pesky thieves and pickpockets who frequently relieve pilgrims and
tourists of their wallets and handbags during crowded church ceremonies
inside Saint Peter's Basilica or while walking through the Vatican
museums.

They are normally handed over to Italian police for
processing and trial if necessary. Law and order inside the tiny
territory is in the hands of the 130-strong Vatican Gendarmerie staffed
almost entirely by ex-members of the Italian Carabinieri and State
police.

In charge is Inspector-General Domenico Giani, who formerly
worked for the Italian Secret Services. While the 120 members of the Pope's Swiss Guard carry out
ceremonial and guard duties inside the mini-state, the blue-uniformed
police are responsible for traffic and border control, and criminal
investigations.

The Vatican police came under criticism from Paolo Gabriele
during his trial. He accused them of putting him in a cramped detention
cell inside police headquarters where he was held for 15 days with the
light switched on day and night and with scarcely room to raise his
arms.

The Gendarmerie explained that this was done to prevent
Gabriele from harming himself, and that he himself had asked for the
light to be left on at night and was given a sleeping mask.

The first 'Prisoner of the Vatican'

After losing most of his territories in 1870 with the founding
of the new strongly anti-clerical united kingdom of Italy, Pope Pius IX
declared himself "Prisoner of the Vatican".

It took almost another 60
years before Popes were again able to venture outside the walls of their
stronghold, as a result of the creation under Mussolini of the Vatican
City micro-state within the city of Rome.

The butler has now been given a
larger detention cell. He will be allowed regular visits by his family -
he has three children - and will receive spiritual counselling from a
priest. He will also be allowed to attend Sunday mass under police
escort.

The tortures inflicted on victims of the Holy Inquisition for
heresy from the Middle Ages onwards are legendary.

Visitors to Rome can
still see some of the dungeons into which prisoners of the Church used
to be thrown.

The dungeons of the Castel Sant'Angelo, a papal fortress just
near the Vatican, inspired the 18th Century Italian artist Giovanni
Battista Piranesi to create his famous series of imaginary etchings of
Roman prisons - I Carceri.

But the Vatican Gendarmes insist that the conditions under
which Gabriele will be held fully respect the Geneva Convention on
torture and "conform to the detention standards applicable to other
countries in analogous circumstances".Gabriele, a Vatican citizen, has already spent five months
since his arrest last May in detention or under house arrest, so in
theory he has another 13 months to serve.His case has caused huge embarrassment to the Vatican
authorities and to Pope Benedict in person.

They fear he might spill
further secrets if he were to serve his term in an Italian prison, which
under present treaty arrangements between the Holy See and Italy, he
should do.Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to assassinate Pope
John Paul ll in 1981 was tried and sentenced by an Italian court after
his capture in Saint Peter's Square, over which jurisdiction is shared
between the Italy and the Vatican.

The bishop of the devastated city of Aleppo has told MPs at
Westminster that bishops in Syria are torn between urging Catholics to
stay living in a warzone or flee, risking a Christian exodus similar to
the one that happened in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

Speaking at a parliamentary briefing in London last week organised by
the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Odo said a
mass exodus of Syria's ancient Christian communities would signal a
victory for the insurgents aiding the mainly Sunni rebels fighting the
regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

Many people in Aleppo had fled, he said, adding: "We fear
Christianity will lose its influence like in Iraq, so I ask, what is the
future of Christianity in the Middle East?"

A senior cardinal has said that bishops in the English-speaking world
have been too accommodating in their proclamation of Church teaching.

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney and a member of the
Congregation for Bishops, said: "Sometimes we have to give the Church's
moral teaching in a political situation where we know it is almost
impossible that it is going to be accepted ... Even in those situations
we are still obliged prudently and sensibly to present the truth."Speaking at a press briefing during the Synod on the New
Evangelisation in Rome last week, he said: "I would be tempted to say
that we have been a little bit too accommodating. And I am not sure that
it has worked to our benefit."

The archdiocese of Westminster will take over responsibility for
ensuring the "Catholicity" of St Benedict's School in west London from
the monks of Ealing Abbey, it has been revealed.

A report by the Apostolic Visitation into child safeguarding procedures at the abbey, seen by The Tablet
this week, says the archdiocese will now become involved in maintaining
"the Catholic nature of the school, since the [Benedictine monks] will
no longer have the power to ensure this".Following recommendations made by Lord Carlile last year in his
report into 21 allegations of child sex abuse at the school, it was
removed from the abbey's control.It is understood that the archdiocese will work with the new board of
trustees which took over governance of the school from the Benedictines
last month.

The Vatican's decision to remove Mgr Charles Scicluna from his role
in dealing with the clerical abuse crisis was "beyond understanding",
according to a leading spokeswoman for abuse survivors.

Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins told The Tablet this
week that she found Mgr Scicluna, who had spent the past decade as the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Promoter of Justice, "to be
the one hope for the future"."How a man with his understanding of the past and determination to
get child protection in the Catholic Church right in the future could be
removed is beyond understanding," she said.

"There were those in the Vatican who opposed his hard line on the
handling of abusive priests. It is so sad to see how their view seems to
have prevailed."

The Vatican on Thursday moved Pope Benedict's former butler, who
admitted leaking sensitive documents, from house arrest to a cell in the
city-state's police station and indicated he would not be getting a
papal pardon anytime soon.

In a detailed statement that attacked Paolo Gabriele for violating
papal trust, the Vatican insisted he acted alone in what it called a
personal "criminal plan" that resulted in the biggest breach of Vatican
security in recent history. Gabriele, who was sentenced to 18
months by a court on Oct. 6 for stealing and leaking the documents, was
moved to the cell to serve the remainder of his term after the
prosecution decided not to appeal, making the ruling definitive. The
prosecution had asked for three years.

"(This) puts an end to a sad situation that has had many painful consequences," the Vatican statement said.

Gabriele
was arrested in May for stealing documents from the pope's office and
leaking them to the Italian media in what became known as the
"Vatileaks" scandal.

Some of the documents alleged corruption in
the Vatican's business dealings with Italian companies, laid bare
rivalries and bickering at the highest levels of the Catholic Church,
and disclosed internal conflict on the running of the Vatican bank.

The
statement attacked Gabriele, who said during the trial he was
influenced by a general malaise in the Vatican and had confided in some
people within the Holy See's walls, saying he had "dealt a personal
offence" to the pope.

It accused him of violating the privacy of
other people by leaking their private correspondence with the pope,
sullying the Holy See's reputation, damaging the working environment in
the Vatican, and "causing scandal among the community of the faithful"
of the 1.2-billion-member Church.

NO PARDON SOON

The tough
wording of the statement indicated that a papal pardon for Gabriele,
which would free him from jail, may not come as soon as previously
believed.

It said Gabriele would still be able to appeal to the
pope for a pardon but first he would have to recognise the gravity of
his crime and "make a sincere request for forgiveness from the Supreme
Pontiff and those who were unjustly offended".

During the trial
Gabriele said he stole, copied and leaked the documents out of "a
visceral love" for the Church and because he felt aides were keeping
information from the pope.

He told investigators he saw himself as "an agent of the Holy Spirit".

The
Vatican statement firmly contested this, saying his actions were "based
on personal convictions that no one can share in any way".

Many
observers are convinced that Gabriele, who served the pope his meals and
helped him dress, could not have done it all by himself and may have
been a pawn for others.

The Vatican used the statement to strongly restate its position that he acted alone, although it failed to mention thata second Vatican employee goes on trial next month on a lesser charge of aiding and abetting.

"The
trial verified the facts, confirming that Mr Paolo Gabriele put his
criminal plan in motion without being instigated or incited by anyone,"
it said.

"Various conjectures about the existence of plots or the involvement of other people were shown to be unfounded."

Gabriele
was moved from the apartment where he lived with his family to the same
cell he was held for some of his pre-trial detention, although not the
tiny "holding room" where he was held immediately after his arrest and
which he denounced as not large enough to spread his arms.

In this “Year of Faith” called for by Pope Benedict XVI, the
Archdiocese of Atlanta invites Hispanic catechetical leaders and other
faithful Spanish speakers to enroll in an online pastoral theology
certificate program through a new partnership with the University of
Dallas School of Ministry.The program aims to enrich formation of ministry leaders catechizing
and evangelizing the Hispanic Catholic community in the United States to
better serve their communities.

Participants will complete online 12
theology and six pastoral courses in Spanish over three years, with two
academic and one pastoral per semester, in areas of catechesis, prayer,
leadership and methodology to achieve a certificado en teologia pastoral
(CPT) and become master catechists for the archdiocese.“It came about from the need of formation in Spanish. There are not
many programs out there, but this parish program caught our attention.
It’s coming from a very good institution,” said Monica Oppermann of the
archdiocesan Office of Formation and Discipleship. “It’s a program that
has been tested in other dioceses in the United States. … It is a
program that has been designated here in the U.S. for Hispanic
residents.”The program’s courses range from Scripture, church fathers and church
history to youth and young adult ministry, liturgy and sacraments, and
prayer and spirituality.

Priority enrollment is given to those in
Hispanic ministry nominated by their pastor but is open to all until the
100 spaces are filled, Oppermann said. It may be beneficial for anyone
from the busy professional with a college degree not related to
religious studies wanting to bring formation to the parish to the
immigrant leading a ministry who lacks the academic background or means
to pursue degree studies.

Two leaders from parish schools of
evangelization are enrolling, she said, “as a way of continuing their
formation and having the opportunity of receiving a certificate from one
of the most prestigious Catholic institutions in the country.”Oppermann also emphasized that the theology classes, which have no
academic prerequisites, are not overly academic but are simple and
practical in being taught by professors with both advanced degrees and
parish leadership experience.“People with experience in parishes, they’ve come up with it. It’s
very necessary as catechists to know the history of the church and
there’s a whole course on the catechism—there are so many Catholics who
have never opened the catechism,” she said. “We’re forming a leader,
equipping a leader or person who is already working in a parish or wants
to know more about the faith and equipping them with deeper knowledge
and pastoral methods.”The courses require study and discipline but without the intensity of
a degree program.

Participants will view a weekly one-hour, 40-minute
video at their convenience and complete periodic tests, quizzes and
assignments. And some parishes will offer open study groups for those
seeking community.

Class is held weekly for 15 weeks in the spring and
fall semesters. Archdiocesan staff will act as administrators and be
available to provide class-related support as needed.

“We are all going
to be on the same page every week—one class every week and everybody has
to complete assignments that week.”Pastors in the 66 churches in the archdiocese with a Spanish Mass are
being asked to nominate one person; those from the nine parishes with
three or more Spanish Masses can nominate two.

Those nominated by their
pastor will receive a partial tuition stipend from the archdiocese, and
for others the cost is $670 per year.The enrollment period runs through Nov. 17, and the program begins
Jan. 13 following a commencement Mass and orientation at the Chancery
offices in Smyrna. The archdiocese will work with persons needing
alternative payment options.Marist Father S. Patrick Scully, pastor of St. Peter Church in
LaGrange, said that he had already nominated a person from his parish.
For that person, he said, “It will be beneficial, both for personal
enrichment and service in the parish.”

He said, “In my experience, the Hispanic community is super-thirsty
for faith they can understand and explain, especially in rural,
Baptist-Methodist Georgia, where Catholics are minorities to begin
with.”He added, “This program will taste like ‘Gatorade’ to Hispanic
leaders who have been laboring long and hard in Georgia fields, farms,
stores, kitchens and industries.”

Additionally, the program is a straightforward way to become a master
catechist, who can teach catechist certification classes and guide
catechists in formation, as normally the catechetical certification
process involves taking a mixture of formation classes under the
director or parish mentor as they are offered around the archdiocese.There are various online certificate programs in English but
archdiocesan leaders believe that this program meets a need in
addressing the realities of Hispanic immigrants in the United States.

Pia Septien, director of continuing education programs for U.D.’s school
of ministry, said that CPT was launched three years ago and helps
Hispanic immigrants to better understand the communities they serve and
the realities of the American Catholic church.

She said, “Hispanics
immigrants in the United States, for whom everything is different and
new, the consistency that the Catholic Church gives to their lives is
very important. The program will help them develop the skills and the
knowledge needed to help their communities.”

Oppermann agrees that in the United States Hispanic immigrants look
more to their church as a community center of social and spiritual life
and also tend to volunteer much more than she experienced growing up in
Mexico. But at the same time the many undocumented churchgoers don’t
like to register.

“People see church here more like family,” she said. “I was really
impressed when I got to Holy Spirit Parish and saw all those ministries
going on here in the U.S. through the work of volunteers.”In addition to its Hispanic perspective, Oppermann also likes the
CPT’s flexible format that encourages students to consider how they can
share materials with their parishes along the way. “It’s not pulling
leaders out of a parish. It kind of molds to the needs of the pastor and
the leadership,” she said. “It is for the leaders, so they can continue
serving their communities at the parish level.”

Father Scully said, “This program tells our Hispanic leaders that the
archdiocese takes them seriously and wants to cultivate its leaders so
they can pass the faith on to the next generation, who can easily go to
the Protestant church next door (which may have a Starbuck’s) if they
can’t quench their thirst at their home parish.”

Cardinal-designate James M. Harvey has spent 30 years working at
the Vatican in positions requiring great discretion and bringing him
into daily contact with the pope, the world's most powerful government
leaders and millions of Catholic faithful.

Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would induct Harvey, a
native of Milwaukee, into the College of Cardinals Nov. 24 and that he
would appoint him archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the
Walls, the major basilica built over the presumed tomb of St. Paul.As prefect of the papal household since 1998, Harvey has arranged the
daily meetings, first, of Pope John Paul II and, now, of Pope Benedict.

He coordinates with the pope's personal secretary and other members of
the "pontifical family" -- those who work in the papal apartment and
have been shaken by the actions and conviction of Paolo Gabriele, the
former papal butler, on charges of aggravated theft.When heads of state make official visits to the pope, it is Harvey who greets them first and escorts them to the pope.

And when the pope meets small groups or holds his large weekly
general audiences, Harvey is at his side. At a July 2011 prayer service
in Cardinal-designate Harvey's home archdiocese, Archbishop Jerome E.
Listecki of Milwaukee introduced him as "the second most photographed
person in the world."Harvey, 63, was one of the three Vatican officials closest to Blessed
John Paul, coordinating his audiences and public appearances as the
pope aged and became increasingly debilitated by Parkinson's disease.Pope John Paul personally ordained him a bishop in 1998, along with
now-Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope's longtime personal secretary,
and Archbishop Piero Marini, his longtime master of liturgical
ceremonies and current head of the commission overseeing the
International Eucharistic Congress.At the ordination Mass, the pope said he was particularly close to
the three because of their "unique service to the Holy See and to me
personally.The pope described Harvey as "my faithful collaborator in the
Secretariat of State," who was about to take on responsibility for his
"daily round of audiences and meetings."Harvey, a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps, was assigned to the
secretariat of state in 1982 after a two-year posting in the Dominican
Republic. In 1997, he was named assessor of the secretariat, a rank
similar to that of an undersecretary at a Vatican congregation.Although he has been at the Vatican for 30 years, he has kept his ties with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.Preaching at a prayer service last year on the eve of the ordination
of Milwaukee Auxiliary Bishop Donald J. Hying, Harvey spoke about the
challenges of public ministry and about the mystery of God calling human
beings, with all their flaws, to bring the Gospel to the world.The Milwaukee Catholic Herald, archdiocesan newspaper, quoted him as
telling the congregation, "In every age, especially in recent years,
priests, bishops, human beings have been placed under huge reflectors,
powerful spotlights on stage," particularly during the clerical sex
abuse scandal.

"The harsh lights were focused, the heat on the stage is
so intense that the makeup cake is running off these actors' faces,
leaving exposed every blemish, every scar, every wart and pockmark for
the world to see," he said.Yet, "human beings are creatures of this world that God designed to
be his instruments for bringing us closer to him," he said. The mission
of drawing people to holiness is "a noble task, a beautiful task, a
daunting task."Born Oct. 20, 1949, in Milwaukee, the soon-to-be cardinal did his
high school and college studies at the Milwaukee archdiocesan seminary.

Sent to Rome's Pontifical North American College, he earned a license in
theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and was ordained to
the priesthood in 1975 by Pope Paul VI.In 1976, he began studies at the Vatican's diplomatic academy.

After
earning a doctorate in canon law, he entered the Vatican's diplomatic
service in 1980.

A Minnesota nonprofit that assists beginner and rural farmers lost
its grant funding from the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference when the
conference learned it was a member of two Minnesota groups that oppose
Minnesota's marriage amendment, an amendment the church supports.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the bishops' domestic
anti-poverty program, did not cut funding because of something the Land
Stewardship Project did, but "because they don't like whom we associate
with," said Mark Schultz, the project's associate director/policy and
organizing director.The organization, which helps sustain rural farms and has an office
within the Winona, Minn., diocese, is an organizational member of two
large nonprofits: Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and TakeAction
Minnesota. Those two organizations, while their missions do not involve
same-sex marriage, have taken stances against the marriage amendment.On Nov. 6, Minnesotans will vote on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman."We have no position on that," Schultz said. "We don't do any work on that."Although Land Stewardship Project does not have a position on the
marriage amendment and belongs to the two organizations for other
reasons, it is because of these relationships CCHD revoked the project's
$48,000 grant this summer.But Schultz, who is Catholic, thinks CCHD is wrong."We're not in violation of the contract because it's not the purpose
or agenda of these groups to do something about marriage," he said.The Land Stewardship Project and CCHD have a long history together,
Schultz said. He estimated the bishops' agency has given them 15 or so
grants in the past, and he appreciates the work the bishops' agency
does."This is really difficult for us," he said.Under CCHD grant guidelines, a group is ineligible if it "promotes or
participates in activities that support principles contrary to Catholic
Teaching or work against the USCCB's priorities to defend the life and
dignity of all human persons, to strengthen family life and the
institution of marriage, and to nurture diversity."

The Land Stewardship Project, which has offices in southern
Minnesota, was founded in 1982 "to foster an ethic of stewardship for
farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable
communities."Schultz said the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, which has 2,000
members, helps organizations be better nonprofits, and TakeAction
Minnesota -- which has 14,000 individual and 29 organizational
dues-paying members -- works on health care reform, which relates to the
farm organization's work because many of its members are "underinsured,
uninsured, and paying huge amounts of money to insurance corporations."The Land Stewardship Project, when listing its affiliations on the
application, evaluated if its memberships would be a violation of the
CCHD contract, Schulz said, but decided they would not because none of
the Land Stewardship Project's work with the two organizations involved
the marriage amendment and because the separation was so distant it
would not be a problem. However, CCHD disagreed.

CCHD director Ralph McCloud told NCR the agency has given
grants to the Land Stewardship Project multiple times since about 1989,
and he noted the project's "tremendous work over the years." However,
its affiliation with the two organizations made it ineligible for a
grant this year, he said.When the Winona diocese contacted the bishops' conference this
summer, CCHD looked into what constitutes a membership in the two
organizations: "Is it dues paying, do you support the activities of the
group, what activities do you work together on, do you enhance the group
by your presence there -- those kinds of things," McCloud said.McCloud said that as CCHD understood it, the Land Stewardship Project
was a dues-paying member. The group gave the Land Stewardship Project
time to cut ties with the two groups in order to keep the grant. The
Land Stewardship Project deliberated but decided to keep its
memberships.

Joel Hennessy, director of mission advancement for the Winona
diocese, said the Land Stewardship Project does "wonderful work," and
the diocese "is sad that people have to suffer." He said he is hopeful
the relationship can one day continue.

Since at least 2007, the Land Stewardship Project has received
$30,000 or more in grant money from CCHD, according to the group's grant
reports.

In recent years, CCHD has come under attack from groups that say the
bishops' agency funds programs that are inconsistent with Catholic
teaching.

A coalition group called Reform CCHD Now compiled information
on possible violations with the Land Stewardship Project using CCHD's
guidelines and sent the findings to the Winona diocese, said Michael
Hichborn of the American Life League, one of the organizations in the
coalition.

Founded in 2009, Reform CCHD Now works "to shine the light on the
problem of Catholic funds going to organizations that promote abortion,
birth control, homosexuality and even Marxism," according to its latest
report on its website.

After renewing its grant guidelines in 2010, CCHD has been more vigilant, resulting in cut grants for some groups.For the 2012-2013 funding year, 214 organizations received more than
$9.1 million from grants, according to Catholic News Service. The CCHD
church collection is typically the weekend before Thanksgiving, Nov.
17-18 this year.McCloud said there have been discussions on whether CCHD needs
stricter guidelines to eliminate confusion on eligibility. Part of the
problem, he said, is the sudden appearance of marriage amendments on
organizations' agendas.

CCHD encourages collaboration to end poverty, McCloud said."That's a virtue when you're able to work across different types of
lines and come together to work on an agenda that deals with persons who
are in poverty. That's important to us. But to work with organizations
who are working against some of the things that we're teaching, the
tradition that we have -- we just have no tolerance for that."